Information security has recently drawn world attention, and information processing apparatuses that perform biometric authentication of a user using biometric information (user authentication) are now in widespread use. Since an information processing apparatus with a biometric authentication function remains unusable unless user authentication is not successful, information leakage to a third party is controlled.
Examples of biometric information include vein authentication based on veins in the palm of a person, finger print authentication using the fingerprint, and iris authentication using the iris in the pupil. From among these authentication methods, the palm vein authentication is used in automatic teller machines (ATMs) of financial institutions. For example, related art techniques are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-122164, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-159762, and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2013-105222.
Since the palm vein authentication reads information of veins typically present deep from the palm skin of the human hand, its biometric information is more difficult to falsify than that of the fingerprint authentication or the iris authentication. The introduction of the function of vein authentication is thus desirable not only in a stationary information processing apparatus, such as ATM, but also a portable information processing apparatus (mobile terminal apparatus), such as a smart phone or a tablet. The vein authentication is desirably implemented in a simple configuration.